Green Mountain

Si Caogui dashed out of the courtyard, only to feel like he had stumbled into another world:

In his memory, Shangjing City was still the first day of the new year, cold and deserted, but as soon as he stepped out of the house again, the streets were bustling with many people coming and going. There were couples returning from visiting the wife’s family, commoners heading to the east and west markets for the night markets, and relatives coming to visit.

Si Caogui grabbed someone and asked, "What day is it today?"

The man he grabbed gave him a strange look, "The second day of the new year, what else could it be?"

Si Caogui asked again, "What time is it now?"

The man shook off his hand impatiently, "Seven p.m."

Si Caogui muttered to himself, "Seven p.m. Coming from Lushun, changing horses in Chenzhou, then to Shangjing... Lin Chaoqing hasn’t reached Shangjing yet, there’s still time."

But where could he search for Mrs. Lu? Where would she choose to ambush Lin Chaoqing?

Si Caogui closed his eyes in deep thought, arranging Shangjing’s 108 districts in his mind, relying on his understanding of Mrs. Lu to ponder what choice she might make.

Yet, after a long while, his mind was still a tangled mess.

When they first arrived in the Ning Dynasty, they didn’t start as spies; the men from the army only knew how to kill, clumsy at espionage.

It was Mrs. Lu who taught them the skills of the Jing Dynasty’s Eight Generals of Thousand Gates, dividing them into the "Upper Eight Generals": General, Ti General, Anti-General, Wind General, Fire General, Removal General, Rumors General, Escape General; and the "Lower Eight Generals": Zhuang General, Flow General, Heavenly General, Feng General, Zhong General, Ma General, Yan General, Kun General.

In the Jing Dynasty, Mrs. Lu was the closed disciple of the General, serving as a strategist. When she came to the Ning Dynasty to start anew, she rebuilt a team of Eight Generals of Thousand Gates, which became the foundation of the Jing Dynasty Military Intelligence Department.

As for all of them, they should be considered Mrs. Lu’s disciples.

At that time, Lu Jin served as the General to strategize, Forget served as the Ti General to negotiate, while Si Caogui could only hold the rear as the Fire General. For years he tried to learn, to think, but estimating his master Mrs. Lu was still too difficult.

In the next moment, Si Caogui headed toward Yanping Gate.

He remembered his waist tag was no longer with him, so he immediately hid under the shadows of the eaves to avoid the patrol of Wanglou Marquis. Passing by a donkey meat pastry shop, he discreetly took a knife from the counter and hid it behind him when the shopkeeper wasn’t paying attention.

Along the way, Si Caogui looked around, his gaze sweeping over every shadow suitable for an ambush, balconies on the second floor, and hutong entrances, but he still couldn’t find any trace of Mrs. Lu.

It wasn’t Yanping Gate.

Si Caogui headed to Golden Light Gate but still found nothing.

Anhua Gate, Mingde Gate, Qixia Gate, Spring Bright Gate, Yanxing Gate... he searched through each one, almost seeing every place Lin Chaoqing might pass by, yet he still couldn’t find Mrs. Lu.

Si Caogui leaned against a stretch of eaves, shaking his head. He didn’t know what kind of drug Mrs. Lu had given him, making him sleep for a whole day and night, leaving him still feeling groggy.

There wasn’t much time left; calculating the time, Lin Chaoqing would soon arrive in Shangjing.

"Ah Jie, where would you be?"

"Where else haven’t I looked?"

But at this moment, Si Caogui widened his eyes suddenly, muttering, "There are several routes for Lin Chaoqing to enter the city. If it were Ah Jie, she would definitely try to find out which way Lin Chaoqing is coming from first, then ambush him on the way. But if it were mother, she would definitely choose the most foolproof place."

Si Caogui moved along the shadows towards Vermilion Bird Gate. When he arrived at Vermilion Bird Street, he saw the watchtowers on both sides, guarded warily by the Marquis.

Each watchtower elsewhere only had three Marquises, but outside the Imperial City, Vermilion Bird Street had six, with even more people in the Marquis’ shop downstairs than in other places.

He looked up farther ahead, seeing fire pits burning on Vermilion Bird Gate’s tower; behind the battlements, hundreds of Right Guard Elite garrisoned to guard the palace.

The Imperial City, Vermilion Bird Gate.

No matter which way Lin Chaoqing entered the city, to reach the Privy Council, he must pass in front of Vermilion Bird Gate. It was the most foolproof choice, but also the most dangerous.

Si Caogui didn’t approach Vermilion Bird Gate, pretending to choose masks at a shop while glancing at both sides of Vermilion Bird Street.

In the next moment, he froze, seeing Mrs. Lu in black, standing under the eaves diagonally opposite on Vermilion Bird Street, coldly watching him.

She indeed was here.

Si Caogui threw the mask in his hand back onto the stall and turned to meet Mrs. Lu’s gaze. Across Vermilion Bird Street, he lowered his right hand, pointing towards the watchtowers on each side of the street, then towards the Right Guards atop Vermilion Bird Gate tower, but Mrs. Lu remained unmoved.

Just as Si Caogui was about to cross Vermilion Bird Street, he heard hoofbeats coming from the south.

He swiftly turned to see Lin Chaoqing riding swiftly down the long street, hoofbeats on the bluestone making crisp clattering sounds. The other party still wore a bamboo hat and straw coat, a long knife across his back, looking just like the Jiefan Guard Commander, the same as when Chen Ji first saw him.

Si Caogui looked at Lin Chaoqing, then back at the eaves where Mrs. Lu had stood—there was no trace of her.

He searched for Mrs. Lu, only to see her pretending to be an ordinary passerby, nonchalantly walking into the middle of Vermilion Bird Street, timing it just right to block Lin Chaoqing’s path.

He looked again at Lin Chaoqing, who had already sensed it, reached for the hilt of his knife behind him, and said in a deep voice, "Move aside!"

Mrs. Lu heard the voice, looked at Lin Chaoqing with a panic-stricken expression, and hurriedly retreated.

Just as Lin Chaoqing brushed past her, Mrs. Lu’s retreating right leg suddenly exerted force, cracking the blue brick and halting her movement. Instead of retreating, she suddenly lunged forward, pressing a palm toward Lin Chaoqing’s side, the edge of her long palm lighting up with the Zhen Trigram.

Lin Chaoqing leapt up like an onion pulled from dry ground, spinning off the horse’s saddle with his long knife. He stepped on Mrs. Lu’s wrist, using the momentum to propel himself higher and fly into the distance.

This step pressed Mrs. Lu’s hand down, and her palm pressed against the horse’s body, causing a sound of bones breaking within the steed, which neighed and collapsed to the ground with a thud.

While spinning in midair, before he landed, Lin Chaoqing took off his bamboo hat and threw it at Mrs. Lu. The hat, with knife blades hidden within, spun towards Mrs. Lu and was struck away with a palm, scattering into pieces of bamboo in midair.

The two hidden knife blades in the hat thudded into the shop sign on the street corner.

Lin Chaoqing gracefully landed, slowly undid the straw coat around his neck, revealing the leather armor of the Hu Ben Army. He glanced at Mrs. Lu and calmly said, "Qing Wentao has already been exonerated, so why do you risk your life to come to Shangjing?"

Mrs. Lu said nothing, charging forward again to engage Lin Chaoqing in battle.

But Lin Chaoqing suddenly abandoned his knife, attacking with his palms as well. As they fought, both moved in the steps of the Eight Diagrams, their pace quickening like the yin and yang fish pattern turning in the long street.

Mrs. Lu frowned slightly, as if surprised that Lin Chaoqing knew her step technique.

The difference lay in her aggressive moves, while Lin Chaoqing’s soft, seemingly powerless responses. She delivered over ten palms, yet he constantly evaded without attacking back.

But the next moment, as she stepped into the Zhen Trigram position and pressed a palm lit with the Zhen Trigram towards him, Lin Chaoqing’s palm edge too lit up with the Eight Diagram Pattern rotating in succession, finally freezing on the Zhen Trigram.

Mrs. Lu’s expression changed, and simultaneously they sidestepped each other’s palm in identical postures.

She said in a deep voice, "How do you know the Eight Trigrams Dragon? No, you weren’t standing on the Zhen Trigram, this is Kujue Temple’s ’No Self’!"

The Eight Trigrams Dragon fixes its trigram positions with steps: Qian, Kun, Kan, Dui, Li, Zhen, Xun, Gen, where the step lands corresponds to the trigram, but with Lin Chaoqing, he twists the Eight Trigrams Dragon alive.

Mrs. Lu executed a Zhen Trigram, and he across her executed a Zhen Trigram as well!

Lin Chaoqing said nothing, and in the mere tens of breaths that followed, the two exchanged dozens of identical moves and paths, yet neither could subdue the other.

The blue bricks on the long street where they stood bore the marks of the Eight Diagrams from their feet.

At this moment.

No Right Guard Elite charged out from Vermilion Bird Gate; instead, as the two began their fight, the sound of drums immediately resounded from the gate tower, directing the Right Guards below to slowly close the Vermilion Bird Gate.

The Right Guard Commander stood watching from the gate tower, while the Deputy Commander quietly asked, "Commander, so close and yet we do nothing?"

The Right Guard Commander said calmly, "Our duty is to guard the Imperial City, capturing criminals is the Imperial Guard’s job. Without an imperial decree, no one is allowed to enter or exit the Vermilion Bird Gate!"

Beneath the gate tower, the Marquis on the watchtower had already drawn his bowstring, eyes fixed on the two maneuvering swiftly along Vermilion Bird Street. Yet their movements changed so quickly that they couldn’t ensure only killing Mrs. Lu without harming Lin Chaoqing.

But at the drum sound changed in the distance, a dozen Marquis’ expressions changed, and they simultaneously released their arrows, determined to kill Mrs. Lu even if it meant accidentally harming Lin Chaoqing in the process.

Both Mrs. Lu and Lin Chaoqing’s expressions changed, and while Lin Chaoqing sought to evade, Mrs. Lu disregarded the Marquis, determined to pin Lin Chaoqing under the rain of arrows.

Her steps shifted, and a palm strike was unleashed.

Lin Chaoqing had no choice but to meet her palm strike head-on, using each other’s force to separate. As their palms collided, both palm edges lit up with the Kan Trigram. After one palm, brilliant phantoms flew from behind them both as one of their three souls, the "Bright Spirit," was shaken out of their bodies.

As they retreated to stand under the eaves, feathered arrows pinned into their previous position, tail feathers quivering incessantly.

Neither Mrs. Lu nor Lin Chaoqing looked at each other, instead surveying their surroundings, while in the distance, the sound of armor, footsteps, and horse hooves grew nearer.

When they looked at each other again, there was no hatred in their eyes, only vigilance, as if the previous moment they had only seen a passerby.

Si Caogui sensed something amiss: "Ah Jie, you..."

Mrs. Lu turned her head to him, "Ah Jie? Where is this?"

Si Caogui froze in place, "Ah Jie, you don’t recognize me?"

He turned his head to look at Lin Chaoqing, who was the same, even forgetting his surroundings. When a Marquis shot an arrow at him, he caught it barehanded and flung it back at the watchtower, nailing it into the face of the Marquis.

Si Caogui muttered to himself, "It’s the Kan Trigram..."

Every palm of the Eight Trigrams Dragon has its essence; the Zhen Trigram strikes the Corpse Dog spirit, breaking enemy alertness; the Kun Trigram strikes the Earth Soul’s subtle force, breaking enemy attachments of love and hate... The recent Kan Trigram palm struck the ’Bright Spirit’ human soul, breaking enemy consciousness and memory.

With her desperate palm strike, even if Mrs. Lu couldn’t pin down Lin Chaoqing, she would shake his human soul out of his body, making him forget the past. Though it would only last three days, it would be enough for Chen Ji to detect the danger and escape.

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